Mountain Wanderer Map and Bookstore

About Me

Owner of Mountain Wanderer Map and Book Store and avid hiker for 40 years. Editor of AMC White Mountain Guide and author or co-author of several other White Mountain guidebooks. Member of AMC Four Thousand Footer Committee and WMNF trail adopter.

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Mt. Whiteface via McCrillis Trail: 10/8/19

This less-used route from the SW is the oldest trail on the mountain.
Though it lacks the spectacular views of the popular Blueberry Ledge
Trail, it offers expansive woods, long stretches of good footing, and a
few unique vistas of its own.

Mt.
Whiteface overlooks the broad intervale that bears its name. The
Blueberry Ledge Trail ascends the humpy ridge to the right. The
McCrillis Trail ascends through the fan-shaped hardwood area on the left
and continues up the narrower spruce ridge above.

This
route starts with 1.7 miles on the Flat Mountain Pond Trail. The view
over the large wetland 1/2 mile in was more colorful than it was 5 days
earlier. Sandwich Dome on the left, the southern Flat Mountain on the
right.

Shortly
after crossing the Whiteface River (still easy despite recent rain) and
entering the Sandwich Range Wilderness, you turn right onto the
McCrillis Trail. This route was opened in the 1850s by the McCrillis
family, who owned a farm in Whiteface Intervale and took in boarders. In
his 1876 White Mounatins guidebook, Moses Sweetser deemed it "somewhat
difficult" and noted that it was very obscure in places.

In
the next 1.5 miles - the first 0.4 mile of which is a traverse to join
the original trail route - the trail passes through a vast, open
northern hardwood forest that blankets the lower south slope of
Whiteface. Good footing all through here.

Interesting fungus.

A remarkable quadruple-trunk maple.

The
trail adopter has recently been at work cleaning drainages and cutting
back beech saplings that lean into the trail. Thank you!

Acres and acres of hardwoods.

The understory was still green, but the canopy promised bright colors looking from above.

At about 2700 ft. the trail enters wild spruce forest. From here up to the south summit the climb is pretty relentless.

The path brushes by some neat boulders.

Higher
up I made a short but gnarly bushwhack to some rough ledges down on the
west side of the ridge. This is tricky terrain - the chasm in this
picture looked to be about 20 feet deep.

But
what a view! Looking over the valley of the East Branch of Whiteface
River to Mt. Israel, the southern Flat Mountain and Sandwich Dome.

The headwall of the East Branch valley.

Sandwich Dome zoomed, behind the cliff-faced south shoulder of the West Spur of Whiteface.

This more restricted view is available via a short scramble to a ledge visible up on the left side of the trail.

This view up to the "white face" can be seen from a ledge on the right side of the trail.

A
couple minutes farther up the trail another ledge provides a more open
view. Even though this perch is visible from the trail, there is no side
path to it.

This
huge slab gave Mt. Whiteface its name. It reportedly was exposed by a
great slide during a rainstorm in 1820. In the 1840s geologist Charles
T. Jackson and his survey team stayed at the house of Neal McCrillis in
the Whiteface Intervale and ascended Mt. Whiteface via the ravine -
presumably of White Brook - to the south. During their sojourn McCrillis
regaled them with the story of the slide.
After a dry spell, there were heavy rains for several days. “The slide
took place in October, 1820,” wrote Jackson in his report, “with
prodigious violence and great noise.“ The stream on the south side of
the mountain was dammed up, briefly forming a pond. The raging
watercourse then burst its barrier, “sweeping in its impetuous course
rocks and trees in promiscuous confusion, and cutting a deep ravine in
the side of the mountain several miles in extent.” The slide struck the
side of a barn in the Intervale, but the animals within escaped
unharmed. The meadows of the Intervale were covered with an enriching
fine sediment, in places four or five feet deep

View to the southeast.

Colors in the valley.

Mountain ash berries.

This ledge scramble just below the south summit was pretty tricky as the rock was wet and quite slippery.

A ramp of ledge makes the final approach to the top.

Looking back, a peek at Flat Mountain Pond and Sandwich Dome.

The expansive southern view from the ledgy south summit.

Top of the south summit.

On the highest outcrop is a triangle etched into the granite by the U.S, Coastal Survey in the 1870s.

Heading north on the Rollins Trail, a glimpse of Mt. Osceola and South Tripyramid.

The site of the shelter known as Camp Shehadi, built by the Wonalancet Out Door Club in 1899 and removed in 2002.

Meandering along the ridge to the wooded true summit of Mt. Whiteface.

A cairn marks the spot.

I
returned to the south summit, then dropped down Blueberry Ledge Trail
to its uppermost outlook, one of my favorite perches in all the White
Mountains.

I
wanted to peer down into The Bowl - the glacial cirque between
Whiteface and Passaconaway - during foliage season, and I was not
disappointed.

Eastward to the Wonalancet Range, Paugus and Chocorua.

North to the Prresidentials and Wildcats-Carters, beyond Mt. Tremont and Bartlett Haystack.

An impressive ledge above.

Mt. Passconaway and the headwall of The Bowl.

I spent an hour here, during which I briefly met a trio doing Passaconaway and Whiteface - the only hikers I saw all day.

4 comments:

Great report and pics Steve. Been reading your reports for some time. I especially like how you spend lots of time on summits or viewpoints. I do too. Don't understand why some people reach the summit, take a pic, then head on down. What's the point?